Menu Close
Our Work University of California, Berkeley — Cal Alumni Association

Transforming an Alumni Association’s Digital Presence

Discover how we revitalized the Cal Alumni Association’s digital ecosystem, essentially merging four sites into one.

A laptop display shows the Cal Alumni Association website home page featuring a large image of a crowd at a football game with a prominent California Golden Bears flag. The site includes navigation links and a banner encouraging membership with a "Become a Member" button.

For over 150 years, the Cal Alumni Association (CAA) has supported and connected current students and alumni with each other and their alma mater, UC Berkeley. CAA’s commitment to serve its community translates into an array of programs, which were in need of an elevated digital space with a clear focus on user experience.

In addition to the traditional needs of an alumni association, like driving memberships and donations, CAA also oversees a summer camp, a travel business for alumni, and two substantial content streams in the form of its alumni publication, California magazine, and an alumni news content hub.

So, a new site would essentially need to combine four websites into one cohesive experience. To achieve this, C/A designed and developed an extensive library of modular components that could be mixed and matched depending on the CAA team’s content needs.

The Results

C/A deployed the new CAA website and achieved the association’s website goals:

  • Increased user time on page sitewide
  • Increased pages per session sitewide
  • Decreased bounce rate on California magazine articles
  • Increased goal conversions for membership, giving and trip/camp book­ings

Research & Analysis

We knew going into the CAA website redesign that the discovery phase would be crucial, given the association’s broad audience, diverse program offerings and unique needs. To get a complete picture, we analyzed past website performance, interviewed stakeholders, performed content audits, developed user stories and more. Following this extensive research period, we delivered a comprehensive website strategy detailing our findings and key takeaways, which set a solid foundation for the project, starting with the site map and wireframes.

A site map for Cal Alumni Association showing main navigation categories: Homepage, Membership, Cal Spirit, Get Involved, Give Back, Travel, Camp at the Lair, and California Magazine. Each category has subcategories. Below are key templates used and footer links.

Content Strategy

The CAA website includes two separate content hubs — one for its alumni publication and the other for its alumni news. To give the CAA team a clear path forward for future content, C/A developed a content strategy that laid out the goals behind both of these content efforts. The strategy also informed how content would be organized throughout the website.

A mockup shows a laptop displaying a webpage with sections like "Alumni Spotlights" containing articles. Beside it, a monitor screen displays an article titled "Adding to Berkeley's Multiculturalism, One Ice Cream at a Time" with a photo of two people holding ice cream cones.

Web Design

The key was establishing a design that could clearly illustrate the connection between CAA and its partner brands: California magazine, Cal Discoveries Travel and the Lair of the Golden Bear, all while creating a unifying theme and cohesive user experience. This made site navigation and clear calls-to-action essential to user flow.

The enhanced experience resulted in a 12% increase in the average number of sessions per user, showing that users visit the site more frequently for information. There also was a 5% increase in average pages per visit, as users were able to more easily navigate to other content that interested them.

A laptop screen displays an online article titled "Blue Walls, Big Windows: A New Generation of Justice-Oriented Spaces." The webpage shows a group of people sitting in a circle in a modern, brightly lit room with blue walls and large windows.
Three smartphones on a blue background, displaying a travel-related application with the title "California." Screens show articles, categories like Health and Culture, and an option to start exploring destinations such as Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Screenshot of a travel brochure webpage. The top section features an image of a scenic riverside town with boats and an invitation to join a world-class journey. Below are sections highlighting expert-led travel, new connections, and upcoming trips, including a tour of Northern Italy.

From Our Client

“Because of the content strategy that Casual Astronaut created specifically for the new website, everyone understood the role of their sections within the site. With the old site, we thought the only thing holding us back was an outdated design and UX and once we’d fixed that everything would fall into place. But that wasn’t the case. We needed to come at the content with a new approach.”

— Sarah Juckniess, Senior Director, Marketing & Communications

We never take a one-size-fits-all approach. Let’s chat about a strategy that meets your needs.

CONTACT US